Front page of the Aug. 28, 1963, Denver Post showing coverage of the March on Washington. (The Denver Post)

I’m a sucker for historic front pages. In my former role as a designer, I’ve done a few historic front pages — the Sept. 11 attack, the Columbia explosion, the start of the Iraq War — so it’s always interesting for me to see how the editors who came before me decided to play the giant news of the day, be it local, national, or international.

You’ve probably heard that the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington is Wednesday. I thought it might be interesting to see the Denver Post front from that day. And unlike some of the papers on the East Coast[1], which had the big news on Aug. 29, 1963, our banner headline was on the actual day. At that time, The Post was an afternoon paper so it hit the streets with the start of the coverage, including an aerial shot showing the crowd gathering on the National Mall.

Because the quality of the page scan is a little suspect, here’s the top of the story on that page, written by Post reporters George Brown and Barnet Nover:

WASHINGTON — An emotional throng of more than 200,000 persons marched to the shrine of Abraham Lincoln Wednesday and roared approval as its leaders demanded the end of racial discrimination.

Negroes predominated in the great march on Washington — a confused yet orderly and dramatic pledge to struggle for jobs and freedom for all Americans.

Josephine Baker, the famous Negro entertainer who has lived in Paris for many years, looked down from the speakers’ platform at the memorial and called it “salt and pepper — just what it should be, a united people.” She referred to the mixed crowd — black and white, young and old, Christians and Jews.

“Fight for your rights, the rights of man,” she urged. “Continue on, you can’t go wrong.”

When big news breaks today, you’ll often see our front pages on Twitter or Facebook even if you don’t see the actual printed newspaper. The Newseum[2] in Washington is a great source when you want to see how the news is played across the nation — and the world. It’s fascinating even on a non-big-news day, but when big news hits, the differences in presentation can be incredibly telling.